Michael Willis

Access to four-membered cyclic sulfinamides by energy transfer catalysis Synthetic transformations that advance through excited states proceed by unconventional mechanistic pathways and deliver products not accessible using ground-state chemistry. The breadth of these synt...

Di and Ben's recent work on the synthesis of 4-membered sulfinamides, and onwards to sulfonamides and sulfonimidamides is out now in Science.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Access to four-membered cyclic sulfinamides by energy transfer catalysis Synthetic transformations that advance through excited states proceed by unconventional mechanistic pathways and deliver products not accessible using ground-state chemistry. The breadth of these synt...

In @science.org for chemsky this week, Michael Willis’ group make beta-lactam analogues with S=O in place of C=O, using energy-transfer reactivity of N-silyl sulfinylamine precursors.

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

The annual Yule log homage to Stickman…

Oh…

Desulfinative Cross-Coupling as a Method to Overcome Problematic Suzuki–Miyaura Reactions of Pharmaceutically Relevant Heteroaromatic Boronates The well documented difficulties associated with direct (hetero)arylation of aza-aromatics (e.g., azines) at the α-position to nitrogen led to a collaborative project between the Willis group at Oxfor...

My favorite 2025 #PfizerChemistry publications #12daysOfPapers 6/n:

This wonderful review of desulfinative coupling in med chem as an alternative to traditional Suzuki - esp effective for heterocycles - collab with the Willis lab @rhpdcu.bsky.social
Uses in PMC to scale up
#ChemSky #ChemChat

and today’s bagels…

First go at blueberry and cream cheese buns… from a recipe by Louise Hurst in Buns…

A modular synthesis of azetidines from reactive triplet imine intermediates using an intermolecular aza Paternò–Büchi reaction - Nature Catalysis Azetidines are four-membered saturated N-heterocycles that are of interest in drug discovery and medicinal chemistry. Here the authors report how sulfamoyl fluoride substituents tune the reactivity of...

Ben's work on developing an EnT promoted aza Paternò-Büchi reaction is now online at Nature Catalysis. Key to success was the use of sulfamoyl fluoride substituted imines.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Iron-Catalyzed Decarboxylative Sulfinylation of Alkyl Carboxylic Acids Sulfinamides, sulfonamides, and sulfonimidamides are valuable motifs in medicinal chemistry, yet methods to synthesize alkyl variants from simple, readily available feedstocks remain scarce. In this report, we detail the synthesis of these three distinct sulfur functional groups, using readily available and structurally diverse alkyl carboxylic acids as the starting materials. The method harnesses alkyl radical generation from carboxylic acids using commercial iron salts and visible light irradiation, in combination with commercial sulfinylamine reagents, to deliver alkyl sulfinamide products. The method is operationally simple and scalable, exhibits broad functional group tolerance, and is translatable to continuous-flow synthesis. Furthermore, it facilitates late-stage diversification of complex molecules, highlighting its potential utility in medicinal chemistry applications.

Matt's work on the iron-catalyzed synthesis of sulfinamides from carboxylic acids is online at Organic Letters. The chemistry uses alkyl carboxylic acids, commercial sulfinylamine reagents, and simple iron salts such as iron nitrate as catalysts.
pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

Iron-Catalyzed Decarboxylative Sulfinylation of Alkyl Carboxylic Acids Sulfinamides, sulfonamides, and sulfonimidamides are valuable motifs in medicinal chemistry, yet methods to synthesize alkyl variants from simple, readily available feedstocks remain scarce. In this report, we detail the synthesis of these three distinct sulfur functional groups, using readily available and structurally diverse alkyl carboxylic acids as the starting materials. The method harnesses alkyl radical generation from carboxylic acids using commercial iron salts and visible light irradiation, in combination with commercial sulfinylamine reagents, to deliver alkyl sulfinamide products. The method is operationally simple and scalable, exhibits broad functional group tolerance, and is translatable to continuous-flow synthesis. Furthermore, it facilitates late-stage diversification of complex molecules, highlighting its potential utility in medicinal chemistry applications.

#ChemSky As a medicinal chemist I often look at sulfonamides as isosteic replacements for R-CO2H and now thanks to the Willis lab @ Oxford @rhpdcu.bsky.social & Sygnature, you can do that synthetically too! One step sp3-CO2H -> sp3-SONH2 and acces to sulfonamides and sulfonimides #OrgLett asap

First go at some NY-style bagels…

Ivan's and Charlie's sulfonimidamide article has been selected as a Chemical Science HOT paper! Check out the full collection at rsc.li/3GJTz2h and read our paper here: pubs.rsc.org/doi/D5SC02420J #ChemSciHOT

🧪 Celebrating 25 years of Chemistry in 1 South at the University of Bath

🎉 Talks from alumni + familiar faces, then food + music as the sun sets.
🌇 Good vibes. Great people.

📆 Register by Sept 1
💷 £20 / £10 (students) thanks to our sponsors 🙌
🔗 www.chem25.co.uk

#Chem25 #UniOfBath #Chemistry

Synthesis and functionalization of vinyl sulfonimidamides and their potential as electrophilic warheads Covalent inhibitor design is dominated by the use of electrophilic acrylamide warheads. One limitation of acrylamides is that there are limited opportunities to modify their electrophilicity, and henc...

Great to see Ivan and Charlie's work on the synthesis and reactivity of vinyl sulfonimidamides out in @chemicalscience.rsc.org Here they show that reactivity either above or below that of the corresponding acrylamide can be achieved. @oxfordchemistry.bsky.social
pubs.rsc.org/en/content/a...

It’s a sourdough morning.

Meet the Winners of the 2025 Organic Letters Outstanding Publication of the Year Award | ACS Publications Chemistry Blog Get to know the 2025 recipients, read their winning article, and learn about their plans for building upon their existing research.

Fantastic news that our joint publication with Gabriel Schäfer and colleagues from Idorsia, on Sandmeyer chlorosulfonylation using DABSO, has been selected as the Organic Letters publication of the year for 2024.
axial.acs.org/organic-chem...

Have moved on to cardamom buns…

First attempt at some hot cross buns. Rather rustic looking, but taste good…

Thanks Oliver

There are still a couple of days left to apply for fully funded PhD studentship at the CSHP CDT, including a project from my group on catalytic sulfinamide synthesis. Deadline 29th January.

cshp-cdt.chem.ox.ac.uk

Seville orange season means marmalade time.

Indeed. A busy day today…

Oh yes

and still it continues…

Christmas bike ride

I’ve ended up making Stick Man as my @nigella.bsky.social Yule log. Still tasting great.

Well, it’s almost December…

From compressed yeast to cream cheese and cornflakes: one man’s search for the world’s greatest ... Barry Enderwick has recreated more than 700 sandwich recipes from history, dating from 200BC to the present day. What has he learned – and crucially – which are the tastiest?

If there’s ever an article for ChemSky…

Well here we are. Let’s see how it goes…